Applying E-Commerce in business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Applying E-Commerce in business - Essay Example They can also use a variety of platforms to access these services example: mobiles, laptops and desktop computers. This infrastructure contains universal standards and is globally reachable. It is rich in diversity and accommodates videos, audios and text messaging. They enable firms to host live conferences, instant messaging (IM), file transferring and text based live chat across the globe. E-commerce infrastructure enables effective interacting between clients in multi stratums including consumers, producers and vendors. It decreases the cost and increases the quality of business transactions. It allows clients to customize and personalize the services according to the requirements of different parties (Turban, et. al, 2012). E-commerce generates a number of economic benefits to the businesses due to the above characteristics such as decreasing cost, increasing richness in communication, expanding market and enhancing customer relations. The cost of travelling to market place is s aved and the physical presence is no longer required for bargaining in virtual markets. Videos, audios, pictures and graphics used in virtual markets can simulate the real shopping experience to buyers. Market of the modern day business has expanded widely across the globe. It is not constrained by country borders, racial, religious, language and ethnicity based differences. It does not involve rigid time zones. Billions of potential consumers and various producers can meet in virtual market places. Consumer becomes a co-participant in marketing process. Hence the products can be customized according to individual preferences unlike in traditional marketing methods (Turban, et. al, 2012). It can be converged with contemporary trends in Information Technologies such as cloud computing. Benefits of Cloud computing for E-Commerce Based on the predicting analyses by Nelson (2010) it is forecasted that 80% proportion of total E-commerce in the world will be taken over by cloud computing within 10 years. Processing of payments using the internet and the webs involve identification of transaction ID, customer name, dollar amount, date/time of transaction and status of the payment. All these can be converged in â€Å"cloud† infrastructure at a comparatively lower cost and a higher efficiency (Knowledge Center, 2011). Hence cloud computing depicts the potential growth of E-commerce as well. According to the definition of Mell, and Grance (2011), â€Å"cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction† (p.2). The above definition contains a number of characteristics of E-commerce infrastructure. Economic characteristics of cloud computing are as follows. On-demand self-service involves utility base d access to the cloud without involving of human component for providing the service each time a customer needs it. Broad network provides heterogeneous platforms. Resource pooling allows aggregating the storage, memory, processing capacity and network bandwidth of idle computers across the globe and a number of customers who are unaware of the specific location where the service is provided from. Rapid elasticity involves immediately and unlimitedly providing the services while ensuring its availability, accessibility and

Mechanism Of Electromechanical Induction Meter Information Technology Essay

Mechanism Of Electromechanical Induction Meter Information Technology Essay As the dismal economy spawns desperate measures, most of the residents of our beloved city, Karachi are resorting to a hazardous practice which is stealing electricity. Many utilities say energy theft has risen sharply during the recent economic downturn. Culprits include residential customers whose power is turned off when they fall behind on the bills and small businesses struggling to keep their doors open. They are using a wide array of tactics. Some run wires from utility lines directly into a circuit-breaker panel to bypass the electric meter. Others attached cables on either side of a meter, swipe meters from vacant houses when theirs are removed or tamper with meters to lower their electric bills. People from KESC are finding more and more people are stealing electricity because of the poor economy, said by the sources of electricity supplying corporation. It has been investigated that 3,197 cases of theft in January and February, a 28% jump over the year-ago period. Customers have stolen power for decades, costing utilities 1% to 4% of revenue or about RS 49 billion industry wide each year, according to Electric Light Power magazine. Losses are borned by other customers. Many thieves operate home-based marijuana farms that use lots of lights and power. But the problem is basically mushrooming. Meanwhile, consulting firm Detectent has identified a double-digit arise in business thefts the past six months, many by energy-guzzling restaurants. In Landhi, Deen Baksh, 48, was charged last fall with3 meter rigging. DTE Energy says he helped about 50 downtown businesses cut their gas and electric bills by more than RS.1 million or 30% to 50% each the past several years. The practice is actually dangerous. Touching a power line may burn or even kill an untrained person. In Philadelphia this month, an illegal electricity hookup in a row house resulted in a spark a fire that killed a 30-year-old woman and her 8-year-old daughter. Utilities often learn of thefts from meter readers, neighbors or may be abnormal use patterns. They expect to detect fraud earlier as they roll out smart meters that can remotely monitor electricity usage. Electricity theft can be in the form of fraud (meter tampering), stealing (illegal connections), billing irregularities, or unpaid bills. Estimates of the extent of electricity theft in a sample of 102 countries for 1980 and 2000 are studied. The evidence shows that theft is increasing in most of the regions of the world. The financial impacts of theft has reduced income from the sale of electricity and the necessity to charge more to consumers. Electricity theft is closely related to governance indicators, with higher peaks of theft in countries without effective accountability, political instability, low government effectiveness and high levels of corruption. Electricity theft can be lowered by applying technical solutions such as tamper-proof meters, managerial methods such as inspection and monitoring, and in some cases restructuring power systems ownership and regulation. The main purpose of our report is to present solution to economic problems and then economy rate will become higher. And that loss which KESC have to bear due to this problem will be decreased. Economically this idea has great benefit both for masses and society. Once the theft of electricity would be detected then steps will be taken to stop it which will yield in discouraging the people using electricity illegally. Energy will be distributed to everyone justly thus everyone will be paying charges of only the amount they consume. Energy generating and distributing bodies will not be having extra load over their lines thus no power trips and break downs will occur so no extra money required for correcting such problems. CHAPTER NO 01 ELECTRIC METER 1.1 ELECTRIC METERS: An electric meter or energy meter is equipment that can measure the amount of electrical energy consumed by a residence, business, or an electrically powered device. Electric meters are usually calibrated in billing units; the most common is the kilowatt hour. Periodic readings of electric meters give billing cycles and energy used during a cycle. In settings when energy savings during certain periods are desired, meters may measure demand which is the maximum use of power in some interval. In some areas, the electric rates are higher during specific times of day for encouraging reduction in use. Also, in some areas meters have switches to turn off nonessential equipment. Electricity meters work by continuously measuring the instantaneous voltage (volts) and current (amperes) and then finding the product of these to give instantaneous electrical power (watts) which is afterwards integrated against time to give energy used (joules, kilowatt-hours etc.). Meters for smaller services (for instance small residential customers) can be connected directly in-line between source and customer. For larger loads, i.e. more than about 200 amps of load, current transformers are used, so that the meter can be located other than in line with the service conductors. The meters fall into two basic categories, electromechanical and electronic. 1.1.1 Mechanism of electromechanical induction meter. 1. Voltage coil many turns of fine wire encased in plastic, connected in parallel with load. 2. Current coil three turns of thick wire, connected in series with load. 3.Stator-concentrates and confines magnetic field. 4.Aluminum rotor disc. 5. Rotor brake magnets. 6. Spindle with worm gear. 7. Display dials note that the 1/10, 10 and 1000 dials rotate clockwise while the 1, 100 and 10000 dials rotate counter-clockwise. The electromechanical induction meter operates by counting the revolutions of an aluminum disc which is made to rotate at a speed proportional to the power. The number of revolutions is thus proportional to the energy usage. It consumes a small amount of power, typically around 2 watts. The metallic disc is acted upon by two coils. One coil is connected in such a way that it produces a magnetic flux in proportion to the voltage and the other produces a magnetic flux in proportion to the current. The field of the voltage coil is delayed by 90 degrees using a lag coil.[16] This produces eddy currents in the disc and the effect is such that a force is exerted on the disc in proportion to the product of the instantaneous current and voltage. A permanent magnet exerts an opposing force proportional to the speed of rotation of the disc. The equilibrium between these two opposing forces results in the disc rotating at a speed proportional to the power being used. The disc drives a register mechanism which integrates the speed of the disc over time by counting revolutions, much like the odometer in a car, in order to render a measurement of the total energy used over a period of time. The type of meter described here is basically used on a single-phase AC supply. Different phase configurations use additional voltage and current coils in them. 1.1.2 CURRENT TRANSFORMER (CT) METERING: Huge businesses or multi storey buildings use so much power that they cant be connected to the network via the usual methods so in order for these sites to be metered, the load needs to be broken down so the meter will be able to cope with it and then be multiplied out again in order to get the full amount of power being used. This is known as CT metering. Actually the load comes into a CT chamber from where it is then distributed from buzz bars containing transformers to CT links and then into the meter. The CT chamber also goes into the customers switchboard. The rating of the transformers finds out the multiplier to be applied when calculating true usage. 1.1.3 METER USED IN THE PROJECT: The meter used in our final year project is electromechanical induction meter. 1.2 UNIT OF MEASUREMENT: Kilowatt hour is the most common unit of measurement on the electricity meter which is equal to the amount of energy used by a load of one kilowatt over a period of one hour, or 3,600,000 joules. Some electricity companies also use the SI mega joule instead. Remote current and voltage sensors are be read and programmed remotely by modem and locally by infra-red. The circle with two dots is the infra-red port give the reading. Tamper-evident seals are also present in some meters. Demand is usually measured in watts, but averaged over a period, most often a quarter or half hour 1.3 ELECTRICITY THEFT: Meters can be controlled to make them under-register, effectively permitting power use without paying for it. This theft or fraud can be dangerous and also dishonest. Electricity theft can be in the form of i)fraud (meter tampering) ii)stealing (illegal connections) iii)billing irregularities iv)Unpaid bills. Another common method of tampering on older meters is to attach magnets to the outside of the meter. They magnetically saturate the coils or current transformers, preventing the alternating current from forming eddy currents in the rotor, or inducing voltages in the current transformer. Also rectified DC loads cause mechanical (but not electronic) meters to under-register. DC current does not cause the coils to make eddy currents in the disk so this causes reduced rotation and a lower the bill. Some combinations of capacitive and inductive load can also interact with the coils and mass of a rotor and cause reduced or reverse motion. 1.3.1 Basic Layout Of The Project Including Electricity Theft Possibilities: Bypass wire Breaker to cut out the meter Home Neutral Wire, neutral current iN Phase wire, phase current iP Earth wire Meter Case 1: If there is no bypassing of the meter and the entire load is OFF. iN (Neutral current) = iP (Phase Current) = 0 Case 2: If there is no bypassing of the meter and the entire load is ON. iN (Neutral Current) = iP (Phase current) = some value Case 3; If there is meter bypassing and the entire load is ON. iP (Phase current ) = 0 iN (Neutral Current) = load The first target is to sense / measure phase and neutral current. And if case 3 is verified than it will be a theft case. 1.3.2 Outcomes Of Electricity Theft: The evidence shows that theft is vastly increasing in most regions of the world. The financial impacts of theft have resulted in reduced income from the sale of electricity and the necessity to charge more to consumers. Electricity theft is closely concerned to governance indicators, with higher levels of theft in countries without effective accountability, political instability, low government effectiveness and high levels of corruption. Power theft has surely become an infamously prevalent practice in many parts of the country, both rural and urban. Many cases go unreported in various cities and villages, costing a lot to our countries burdened economy. People actually pay some local electrician a little money to reverse the electricity meter of the house and/or slow its pace. Some people also learn the trick from an electrician and help their family/friends steal electricity. 1.3.3 General Methods To Reduce Electricity Theft: Electricity theft can be reduced by Applying technical solutions such as tamper-proof meters. Managerial methods such as inspection and monitoring. Restructuring power systems ownership and regulation.. A common method of tampering on older meters is to attach magnets to the outside of the meter. These magnetically saturate the coils or current transformers, preventing the alternating current from forming eddy currents in the rotor, or inducing voltages in the current transformer. Rectified DC loads cause mechanical (but not electronic) meters to under-register. DC current does not cause the coils to make eddy currents in the disk, so this causes reduced rotation and a lower bill. Some combinations of capacitive and inductive load can interact with the coils and mass of a rotor and cause reduced or reverse motion. CHAPTER NO 02 MEASUREMENT OF AC CURRENT: 2.1 DESCRIPTION: Here we have considered household power is single-phase electric power, with two or three wired contacts at each outlet. The live wire (also known as phase, hot or active contact), carries alternating current between the power grid and the household. The neutral wire completes the electrical circuit by also carrying alternating current between the power grid and the household. The neutral is staked into the ground as often as possible, and therefore has the same electrical charge as the earth. This prevents the power circuits from rising beyond earth, such as when they are struck by lighting or become otherwise charged. The earth wire or ground connects cases of equipment to earth ground as a protection against faults (Electric Shock). 2.2 MEASUREMENT OF AC CURRENT: Its very difficult to measure ac current and produce voltage proportional to it. For measurement of ac current Hall Effect devices are mostly used. They produce the voltage proportional to the magnetic field in the air gap by inserting Hall Effect magnetic field sensor in the current transformer core air gap. The circuits below measure the ac current without using Hall Effect devices. 2.2.1 WORKING: FIG 1: An electric current J2 is introduced in the secondary winding of the coil which is proportional to the primary winding J1.Th secondary current can be controller by means of number of turns on primary and secondary winding. The primary winding either have one turn or a number of turns wrapped around it while the secondary winding has usually multiple turns around it. If the current transformer is ideal then the current in the secondary winding is equal to that in primary winding. But if it is possess non-ideal characteristics then the current in both windings will not be equal due to substantial phase angle, error of ratio, and/or wave shape in its output. They are the function of: The properties possess by magnetic core. How much burden on it. How much dc component present in the primary current. FIG2: Due to burden in the secondary the currents in the secondary and primary arent equal. Fig 2is used to reduce this effect .V4 is the voltage which is proportional to the rate of magnetic flux and is introduced by terminating the sense winding 10 to high impedance; the effective burden can be reduced by applying it tin series to the secondary winding after it is being amplified. Now the currents in secondary will be proportional accurately to that in primary since the magnetic flux changes in the core is reduced to zero. Smaller flux changes and higher accuracy will be achieved by higher gains in the amplifier circuit while on the other hand this leads to instability and associated =oscillations in the circuit. This technique is a better measure of ac current but the problem raised may be due to the dc component in the primary current FIG 3: Compensation voltage is generated by using secondary current as input and this voltage is required for driving the secondary current. The voltage generated V1 is proportional to the driving current J2 and the output voltage V3 is produced as an information signal. The advantage of above circuit is that instead of using Hall Effect sensors ordinary current transformers can be utilized to measure the ac current with a dc component .The above current sensor has the following properties: Even in the presence of primary current the current transformer gives accurate output. This circuit uses a relatively inexpensive and simple magnetic core. Stable over temperature and time. Primary current in in effected by noise. The voltage V3 is utilized further to obtain a dc voltage. For this purpose this ac output is passed by a rectifier circuit in order to obtain a dc voltage at the output. CHAPTER #03: MICROCONTROLLERS 3.1 INTRODUCTION: Microcontrollers are devices that have CPU, RAM, ROM, I/O ports, and timers all on a single chip. In other words all are embedded on a single chip. For applications in which cost and space are critical issue microcontrollers are preferred for their above mentioned features. Microcontroller is one of the major components of this design as it plays key role of the coordination between all the components. It inputs current signal and evaluates the theft. The result is then sent to remote office by connecting mobile to microcontroller. AT commands are used for communication between mobile and microcontroller. Microcontrollers are available with different instruction set, registers, speed, packaging and costs. There are many different types of microcontrollers. Freescales 6811, Intel 8051, Zilogs Z8, and PIC 16X from microchip technology are popular 8 bit microcontrollers. Nowadays 16 bit and 32 bit microcontrollers are also available. Microcontrollers are not compatible with each other because each has a different instruction set and registers. Certain important points must be kept in mind while selecting a microcontroller for a particular application. Firstly it must be able to satisfy all computational needs. These computational needs include capacity and speed. Speed: While choosing a microcontroller it should be operating at the speed that is required for the application Capacity: For certain applications programs are too long and they exceed on chip RAM capacity. Therefore it is necessary to consider on chip RAM memory. Secondly it must be compatible with devices used in application. This is an important issue. There are many microcontrollers which support only a particular baud rate and are incompatible with the devices that operate at the higher baud rate. Thirdly it must be available in required quantities and at the required costs. 3.2 POPULAR MICROCONTROLLERS: Two important microcontrollers that are widely used are 8051 and PIC. 3.2.1 8051 Family: There are many members of 8051 family which are produced by different vendors and have different features. Some of the well known are: 8051: 8051 was originally produced by Intel corporation .It has 4Kbytes ROM and 128bytes on chip RAM .Other products are 8052 and 8031 microcontrollers. These two have additional features such as increased ROM capacity, speed and timers. AT89C51:One of the most widely used 8051 microcontrollers is AT89C51 from Atmel Corporation. It is one of the most widely used from 8051 microcontrollers because of its easy availability and low cost. OTP version of 8051: One time programmable versions of 8051 are also widely used. Because of its low cost it is used for mass production. 3.3 PREVIOUS APPROACH: Earlier for project purpose Atmel89C51 was selected and ADC0808 was used along with it to convert current to digital. 3.3.1 ATMEL 89C51: It is one of the most commonly used controllers. The reasons behind its popularity are: It is widely available. Programming language is very simple. All its development tools are readily available. 3.3.1.1 Features: It is low powered and 8 bit microcontroller. 32 I/O lines. 6 interrupts 2 timers. 4K flash memory Serial programming is also possible. The figure below shows the pins of Atmel AT89C51. If AT89C51 is used for the current implementation then following points need to be considered: 3.3.1.2 Interfacing ADC With Microcontrollers: It does not have built in ADC therefore an external ADC is interfaced to entertain analog inputs. Normally ADC0808 and ADC0848 are used. 3.3.1.3 Serial communication: For serial communication it has built in UART mode. There is a special serial register known as SBUF. 3.3.1.4 ADC0808: As current is analog quantity and 8051 can only accept digital inputs therefore an ADC was needed .For this purpose ADC0808 was preferred as it is easily available in markets and compatible with 8051. Due to the compatibility issue atmel8951 was replaced by pic16F877A. 3.3.2 PIC: PIC stands for programmable Interface controller and it is made by microchip technology. PIC is widely preferred for industrial applications due to their low cost, capacity, extensive features and wide availability of development tools like its programmer, compiler etc. 3.3.2.1Features Of PIC: It follows Harvard architecture that is code and data spaces are separate. They even have a separate bus. This allows program and data to be fetched simultaneously. Code space is implemented as ROM whereas for data space we have general purpose RAM. However addressable data space is small. There is only one accumulator. Most of the PIC controllers are 8-bit microcontroller that all data should be in 8 bits and all operations are also performed in 8 bits chunks. They also support instructions, operations and commands that allow user to work on single bit. It has predefined instruction set with few changes for different versions .The instruction set includes instructions that support direct memory addressing as well as indirect addressing. It also supports conditions and branching. Newer versions of pic also have built in ADC into the microcontroller. PIC have hardware call stack which cannot be accessed through software. They save return addresses. TYPES OF PIC MICROCONTROLLERS: There are many PIC series of which well known are as follows: PIC17 SERIES PIC18 SERIES PIC32 SERIES PIC24 SERIES PIC16 SERIES For the project PIC16f877A is covered in detail therefore PIC 16 series is discussed briefly. 3.3.2.2 PIC16 Series: PIC16 Series are small, fast, and are available in most of areas. There are many different variants of pic16 series in which some have more I/O pins some have ADC, some have more memory. 3.4 CURRENT APPROACH: 3.4.1 PIC16F877A: For this project pic 16f877A has been used .The reasons behind using it were as follows: It is widely available in most of the areas. It has built in 10 bit ADC that was needed for our project. Its compiler and programmer were also easily available. It supports baud rate required for our application and it is compatible with devices that are used. It is relatively easy to program. The details of the pins are provided in the Appendix A 3.4.1.1 Features Of PIC16F877A: It is a 40 pin device 5 I/O ports A, B, C, D and E some pins are multiplexed so that they can be used for peripheral functions. 15 interrupts 8 A/D input channels 35 single word instructions and 1 instruction is composed of 14 bits. 20 MHz operating speed Data memory of 368 bytes EEPROM memory of 256 bytes 3 timers 2 analog comparators. 3.5 HARDWARE SECTION: Hardware design of PIC consists of combining different modules and devices with the controller that work together in order to attain information from the E-meter and read into the micro-controller. In this section ports, oscillators, registers of PIC that are used for implementing the design are briefly discussed: 3.5.1 Oscillator: External oscillator with a frequency of 12 MHz is used in order to achieve clock speed of 8MHz.The baud rate is set at 9600kbps. Internal oscillator of pic is not used. 3.5.2 I/O Ports: As the current has to be sensed through the microcontroller therefore portA is used and is configured for analog input (AN0 to AN7). Its corresponding direction register is TRISA. 3.5.3 Analog to Digital Converter Module: PIC16F877A has eight pins for Analog-to-Digital (A/D) Converter module. The conversion of an analog input signal results in a corresponding 10-bit digital number. It can even operate in sleep mode. The A/D clock must be derived from the A/Ds internal RC oscillator. The AD module has four registers adresh, adresl, adcon0 and adcon1. The 10 bit AD result is stored in adresh and adresl registers.ADCON1 is used for configuration of port pins. The operation of AD module is controlled through ADCON0. 3.5.4 USART: In order to generate alarm at remote office, controller is connected to mobile. The phone is connected to Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (USART) module which is one of the two serial I/O modules of PIC16F877A. USART is also known as a Serial Communications Interface or SCI. USART uses standard Non-Return to- Zero (NRZ) format (one Start bit, eight or nine data bits and one Stop bit). The USART transmits and receives the LSB first. The transmitter and receiver function independently. 3.6 SOFTWARE DESIGN: 3.6.1 Development Tools: The code is written in pic basic pro language. The code is then converted to hex via microcode studio and hex code is loaded into pic16F877A through quad programmer. Microcode studio is used because its free version is easy available on internet. For compiler three header files are made. One file is used by compiler other is used by programmer. The file with the extension .BAS is used by pbp .Pbp then makes .ASM file from it. It then makes .ASM file from it. If code is error free then assembler required output file with hex code in it. This hex code is loaded in the pic by quad programmer. 3.6.2 Program Code: There are multiple parts of the software design, as the micro-controller plays many parts in the coordination of the instrumentation panel. Firstly internal ADC of the PIC16F877A is configured to sense the current. The next step for the code is to check if input is greater than 0 .If it is greater than 0 then a message is sent to remote office through mobile. For this AT commands are used that are specially made for communication between GSM modules and microcontroller. Other than the mentioned AT commands in the following table are in appendix B COMMANDS PURPOSE ATZ AT+CMGF 3. AT+CMGS 4. AT+CMGL Recall Stored Profile Message Format Send Message List Messages CHAPTER NO 04: WIRELESS ACCESS TECHNOLOGIES: 4.1 EVOLVING WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES IN PAKISTAN: There are two important wireless access technologies that can be used within Pakistan and are feasible for our project and that are: WIMAX GSM 4.2 GSM TECHNOLOGY: For mobile telephony systems in the world, the most popular standard is GSM. The GSM Association estimated that 80% of the global mobile market uses the standard. 1.5 billion People across more than 212 countries and territories uses GSM technology for their benefits. This means that subscribers can use their phones throughout the world between mobile network operators, enabled by international roaming arrangements. GSM is considered a second generation (2G) mobile phone system because GSM differs from its predecessor technologies in that both signaling and speech channels are digital. GSM also facilitates the wide-spread implementation of data communication applications into the system. The GSM standard provides an advantage to both consumers, who may benefit from the ability to roam and switch carriers without replacing phones, and also to network operators, who can choose equipment from many GSM equipment vendors.GSM also pioneered cheapest implementation of the short message service (SMS), also called text messaging, which has since been supported on other mobile phone standards as well. A worldwide emergency telephone number feature is also provided by this standard. GSM also supports indoor coverage and may be achieved by using an indoor picocell base station, or an indoor repeater with distributed indoor antennas fed through power splitters, to deliver the radio signals from an antenna outdoors to the separate indoor distributed antenna system. When a lot of call capacity is needed indoors then these are typically deployed; for example, in airports or shopping centers. However, this is not a prerequisite, since indoor coverage is also achieved by in-building penetration of the radio signals from any nearby cell. The modulation technique used in GSM is Gaussian minimum-shift keying (GMSK). It is a kind of continuous-phase frequency shift keying. In Gaussian minimum-shift keying, the signal to be modulated onto the carrier is first smoothed with a Gaussian low-pass filter prior to being fed to a frequency modulator, so it greatly reduces the interference to neighboring channels (adjacent-channel interference). 4.2.1 GSM CARRIER FREQUENCY: GSM networks operate in a number of different carrier frequency ranges (separated into GSM frequency ranges for 2G and UMTS frequency bands for 3G), the most 2G GSM networks operating in the 900Â  MHz or 1800Â  MHz bands. The 850Â  MHz and 1900Â  MHz bands were used instead, Where these bands were already allocated (for example in Canada and the United States). In some countries the 400 and 450Â  MHz frequency bands are assigned In rare cases because they were previously used for first-generation systems. In Europe Most 3G networks operate in the 2100Â  MHz frequency band. Regardless of the frequency selected by an operator, it is divided into timeslots for individual phones to use. That is why it allows eight full-rate or sixteen half-rate speech channels per radio frequency. These eight radio timeslots (or eight burst periods) are further grouped into a TDMA frame. In the same timeslot half rate channels use alternate frames. The channel data rate for all 8 channels is 270.833Â  kbit/s, and the frame duration is 4.615Â  ms. The transmission power limited in a handset to a maximum of 2 watts in GSM850/900 and 1 watt in GSM1800/1900. 4.2.2 NETWORK STRUCTURE: The network is structured into a number of discrete sections: The Base Station Subsystem (the base stations and their controllers). The Network and Switching Subsystem (the part of the network most similar to a fixed network). This is also called the core network. The GPRS Core Network (the optional part which allows packet based Internet connections). For maintenance of the network, the Operations support system (OSS). 4.2.3 SMS MODES IN GSM: We have two types of SMS modes in GSM SMS Text Mode SMS PDU Mode The text mode (It is unavailable on some phones) is simply an encoding of the bit stream. It is represented by the PDU mode. There are several encoding alternatives when displaying an SMS message and Alphabets may differ. The most common options are PCCP437, PCDN, 8859-1, IRA and GSM. These are

Mutations in KCNQ1 Ion Channel May Cause Jervell and Lange-Nielsen Synd

Mutations in KCNQ1 Ion Channel May Cause Jervell and Lange-Nielsen Syndrome Abstract Jervell and Lange-Nielsen Syndrome is a human disorder that causes deafness and an irregular heartbeat. It is caused by a mutation in a protein that is a potassium ion channel. The mutations lead to a protein that does not serve the purpose it was designed to serve. It is difficult to treat, but there are things that can be done for both the cardiac and auditory aspects of it. Implantation of a device used as a sort of bionic ear can be used as treatment for the deafness characteristic of JLNS. The cardiac portion of JLNS can be treated by either a preventative step or with an implantable device used to stop arrhythmias (irregular beating of the heart) once they have started. Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome is a recessive genetic disorder caused most commonly by mutations in the gene that codes for the KCNQ1 protein. In JLNS, these mutations cause a premature termination of the protein synthesis, leading to a loss of function. It is also known that KCNQ1 can mutate to cause a gain of function (e.g. a quickened heartbeat). Another disorder known as Romano-Ward syndrome involves changing a few of the amino acids within the protein so that the protein retains its basic shape and function, but is a lot less efficient. Without mutations, the KCNQ1 protein is a potassium ion channel, meaning that it transfers potassium ions between a cell and its surroundings. When mutated, KCNQ1 can cause deafness, and long QT syndrome (a disorder in which the heart takes longer to recharge than normal (QT segment is longer than average), often leading to fainting or sudden death.) Jervell and Lange-Nielsen Syndrome affects an estimated 1.6-... ...m.nih.gov/pubmed/18595190?ordinalpos=7&itool=Entrez System2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum [3]Smith, Jarrod A., and Vanoye, Carlos G. and George Jr., Alfred L. and Meiler, Jens and Sanders, Charles R.. "Structural Models for the KCNQ1 Voltage- Gated Potassium Channel." Biochemistry 4614 11 2007 14141-14152. 27 Jul 2008 sample.cgi/bichaw/2007/46/i49/html/bi701597s.html#bi701597sAF2>. [4]"Cochlear Implant." Wikipedia. 27 Jul 2008 . [5]"Long QT Syndrome." Wikipedia. 27 Jul 2008 . [6]"Jervell and Lange-Nielsen Syndrome." Wikipedia. 27 Jul 2008 . [7]"Jervell and Lange-Nielsen Syndrome." WSLH. 27 Jul 2008 .

Energy Cooperative Essay

There are over 400,000 members worldwide that pay annual dues. They receive a very small fee for being web based providing their votes and input. The problem ethically is how much are they getting paid, what information are they researching to help the organization, why are they web based, and where does all the money go that is paid by members? John Locke’s theory of rights would ask the question â€Å"Is this organization giving the members their rights? (2012) eguide LS312 Chapter 1. Meaning do the members know where their money is going and do they know their rights and are their rights being broken? Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative theory would ask this nonprofit organization if their intentions are in the right place. The article states that the organization exists because they want to help energy plants and educate about energy, but again, where are the profits going, and what are their real intentions. (2012) eguide LS312 Chapter 1. In Jeremy Betham and john Stuart Mill’s theory of Utilitarianism, I as a member of the board would ask, if the good outweighs the bad. I personally think in any situation, even if the good does outweigh the bad, all efforts should focus on having all good intentions. (2012) eguide LS312 Chapter 1. If I as a board member used John Rawls theory of justice I would worry about each individual’s rights. The utilitarianism theory would recommend one person losing their job in order to save ten jobs but on the other hand, the justice theory would say no, that one individual was treated unethically. Lawrence Kohlberg developed three levels of moral development. Level 1. Pre-Conventional 1.Seeking rewards 2.Reaction to punishment Level 2. Conventional 3.Law and Order 4.Good Boy/Girl Level 3. Post Conventional 5. Social Contract 6. Universal Ethical Priciples I would use Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory as a guide to see at which development level others are at. Each of these levels consist with the age of a child with level 1 being an infant. So all of these theories could be used in order to see if a company is running ethically or not, and I wouldn’t just use one theory.

Quality Audits for Improved Performance Essay

Auditing is simply the systematic examination and analysis of data through an independent procedure. Important to note is that auditing is not just about data, it also deals with statements, performances, records and operations. A myth that needs to be demystified is the misconception that auditing deals with financial issues or statements. This is not true. Auditing deals with overall performance, financial or otherwise. Any subject matter, in essence may be audited. Auditing therefore, aims at collecting data upon which is gathers evidence and makes judgment. The prevalence of organized systems of governments as well as businesses way back at around 4000BC necessitated the need for record keeping. These records were both financial and non-financial. These organized governments and businesses needed a way through which they could correctly account for their receipts as w3ell as their disbursements. Moreover, this was a period in which tax collection had just been unvented. There was a need therefore, to ensure that the taxes that were collected by the government could be accounted for to prevent any form of misappropriation of the limited government resources as well as public funds. The consequent need for audits as well as the indication of audits can be traced in Babylonia. This was specifically the public finance systems in Babylonia. The rise of this technique can as well be traced back to city states of Italy, Rome and Greece. Specifically the public finance systems of these areas. The governments in these particular areas had begun to question the authenticity of records that were kept in these areas. The accuracy and competency of officials was also being questioned. As a result, there was a need to come up with a system that could take care of these errors of misappropriation, accuracy and incompetence. In a couple of years, there was a need to come up with a way of making accurate records. The consequence of this is that the European systems of book keeping and auditing were introduced in the Non- European countries. CITATION Den07 l 1033 (Arter, 2007) This saw the introduction of auditing in the United States. During this time, businesses were constant increasing in terms of their sizes as well as their complexities. They also grew in terms of their scope. This growth created the need of the creation of a separate unit that would create assurance, internal assurance to be more specific that would verify the accounting information provided by the company. The verification of this information was very import ant in the sense that the accounting information provided was used in decision making processes. As a result, it was very vital to ensure that the financial information provided had to have high degrees of accuracy. This necessitated the need to come up with a procedure that would ensure the accuracy of such information. The best way to gauge this information provided was through the process of auditing. It therefore became a prerequisite for managers, reporting agents and accounting expertise to constantly review and summarize their reports in a way that it could be given meaning. The aim of this was to ensure sufficient objectivity in the records that were provided. It also instilled discipline in the procedures that were necessary in accounting. However, this proved not is enough as some of the stakeholders still revealed some degrees of incompetence. However, this process did not fail entirely. The process has a couple of successes that can be attributed to it. The process had o ne major success. It led to the creation of the auditing technique. One may ask how. Auditing came along as a way of ensuring that even these timely and accurate records and reports that had to be submitted were subjected to preview and analysis. The result of this was the creation of the Institute of Internal Audit in the United States of America. This was extremely important since it ensured that the organizations, whether governmental or non-governmental, came up with ways to ensure complete independence and objectivity. CITATION Der08 l 1033 (Derek Matthews, 2008)The process of auditing has its own historical journey. Initially, this technique existed with the sole aim of accounting for the government and specifically, it was concerned with record keeping. However, the industrial revolution saw auditing evolving from this level to the next. The industrial revolution, which took place between 1750 and 1850, saw the process of auditing having more serious functions. During this pe riod, auditing was given another meaning. The objectives of conducting auditing also change auditing became a necessary process with the aim of detecting fraud as well as ensuring financial accountability other than its initial function of keeping records. This is because the period of Industrial revolution was coupled with intense business growths. Businesses grew into very large enterprises. As a result, it became increasingly difficult for business owners to constantly keep watch over their businesses. This necessitated the creation of a technique that would help keep an eye on all the financial procedures. The functions of auditing were therefore given numerous branches. At this time, auditing was mainly aimed at ensuring accuracy and preventing fraud. CITATION San08 l 1033 (Sandy van Esch, 2008)In the early 20th century, there was a need to standardize the testing methods that were used by auditors as well as their reporting practices. The main reason behind this transition was to ensure uniformity in the auditing field. This period saw to it that the roles of auditors, their methods of auditing as well as their auditing practices were all comprehensive through a well-defined procedure. As a result, auditors came up with a system of examining a selected sample from a company in detail as opposed to analyzing each and every transaction made by the company in detail. This is because the role of auditors was becoming increasingly important and consequently, the demand for their services grew as well. They therefore had to come up with a system that would help greatly when it came to the issue of time consumption. This was the sampling system. However, it is important to note that the sample chosen had to be representative in the sense that the reasons for its choice needed to be justifiable. This system of sampling is still in use to date since it has been found to be less costly as well as time saving. However, it is not used all the time. Its use is subjec t to a couple of limitations. For instance, in the case of gross errors and serious fraudulent activities, sampling is used. Instead, the whole company is audited. This is because such issues require very high standards of precision. This is referred to as risk based auditing whereby it is first established whether an auditing is needed. Thereafter, a full scale audit, instead of a representative audit follows. CITATION Rob09 l 1033 (Moeller, 2009)The demand for auditing, and in this case, both internal and external auditing, has its source in the 19th century. During this time, there was the Industrial Revolution As discussed above and therefore there was a dire need of creating an accounting procedure. This was aimed at cutting down of errors that came with record keeping, checking finance misappropriation, asset misappropriation as well as cased of fraud within organizations that are not business conformed as well. The need and origin of auditing is traced to the period slightly after the evolution of accounting. In the case that someone did not trust the honesty of another man, there arose the issue of fidelity. As a result, this necessitated the need to come up with a process through which the honesty of this man could be tested. This gave rise to the process of auditing. CITATION Rob09 l 1033 (Moeller, 2009)Necessity is surely the mother of invention. It became necessary to come up with a system that could easily provide a way in which accounting was put into perspective. This led to the creation of the auditing technique. However, it is very important to note that even with the invention of auditing, there came a couple of challenges. For instance, the gap between management and action constantly increased. This made it extremely necessary to come up with a means through which businesses could be managed efficiently. The result of this was the diversification of the roles of auditing. Instead of counterchecking financial records and detecting frauds, au diting was given other functions. For instance, the technique was now using d to; ascertain the extent to which the assets of a company are held account for. This included the extent to which these assets were safeguarded from any form of losses.; checking the degree of quality of the performance with regard to the carrying out of certain responsibilities; review and appraisal of the levels of adequacy, soundness and generally the application of specific financial tools as well as tools of operation; the technique of auditing was also expected to establish the extent to which organizations, rather, the departments in organizations complied to the policies that had to set out. This was also to establish the level to which these departments complied with the set out plans and strategies of their institutions†¦ Finally, auditing was also assigned another major role. It was charged with the responsibility of ascertaining the level to which accounting and data provided by accounting could be relied on. Clearly, the functions of auditing had become diversified compared to the time when the technique was invented. CITATION Rob09 l 1033 (Moeller, 2009)With t5ime, auditing was divided into two major categories; internal auditing and external auditing. The former refers to the process by which the financial and organizational records of a company are checked by expertise within the organization. This is the reason as to why each and every organization ought to have an internal audit section. The latter, just like its name suggests involves the process of auditing by expertise from outside the organization. External auditing is extremely important in the sense that it allows non-partisan expertise to gauge the performance of the organization. As a result, external auditing is believed to give a clearer picture of what is happening in the organization. Internal auditing was charged with certain responsibilities; it was meant to assist in the process of communication within the organization in terms of the scope, the performance and the objectives of the organization. In other words, it helped to organization to establish the objectives that it had not meet so far through the gauging of the performance, it also helped to establish the successes as well as the failures of an organization. Consequently, this helped, or rather still helps organizations to come up with well laid out strategies that could ensure that they meet their objectives as well as reconcile their failures. CITATION Den07 l 1033 (Arter, 2007)The history of auditing can be said to be greatly connected to disciplines that are associated with communication of information that deals with economic events. This is regardless of whether the institution in question is part of the government or whether it is an institution is in the private sector. The development in the communication of economic activities therefore goes hand in hand with the developments in auditing. Writing for insta nce, led to the need to record the exchange or transfers of economic goods. The developments in accounting and auditing created the need for the establishment of accountability of the people in authority. The benefits that came with trading as well as the economic benefits of private sector investment came as a result of having accounts of transactions whether it was transactions with others or accounts of trading activities. The reasons for the measurement in one’s permanent income or rather one’s wealth led to the need for one to be able to account for and audit his or her own equity. There was also the need of chartering companies with limited liability. This limited liability was subjected to a series of certain specifications of reporting requirements. These reporting requirements are basically reports from auditing firms. All these were as a result of the rising demand for capital with the huge business projects in the Industrial Revolution. CITATION San08 l 1033 (Sandy van Esch, 2008)Today, the process of auditing has made great milestones ever since the time of its inception. To put this issue into perspective, we have seen the various stages that auditing has gone through. The functions of auditing have also been diversified. Currently, auditing is not only aimed at detection of frauds and financial accountability of the employees of a company .Auditing has also given a platform for companies to have an insight into their own activities. This is one of the reasons as to why internal audits are carried out. It is now described as a very labor intensive job, however, very important for the success of any organization. It offers correction to organization after detecting irregularities. It also gives the way forward for companies by providing ways through which the technical financial mishaps detected in the auditing process can be avoided in future. It is also very clear that the history of auditing made a great, actually the greatest mark in history in the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution saw massive growth of businesses which required constant checking and counterchecking of the financial records which were subject to various manipulations by incompetent officials. Today, auditing firms are one of the major profit making firms due to the high demand of their services. Auditing has become extremely important in today’s society and its importance can never be underestimated. CITATION Der08 l 1033 (Derek Matthews, 2008) References l 1033 Arter, D. R. (2007). Quality Audits for Improved Performance. ASQ Quality Press. Derek Matthews, ‎. P. (2008). The Auditors’ Talk;An Oral History on the Profession. New York: Psychology Press. Moeller, R. R. (2009). Brink’s Modern Internal Auditing. New York: Wiley and Sons. Sandy van Esch, ‎. P. (2008). The Principles and Practice of Auditing. Jutaonline Publishers. Source document